In Second Life (SL, hereafter) I received word about a fake wall at http://marketplacesgabrielsex.altervista.org/index.html. This web page has been taken down since, which I'd like to attribute to me having reported it. If you'd like to find out how I found the right way to report it, then please keep reading.
A fake wall is a web page that looks like that of a legitimate service. The key difference with the real page is that any information entered into a fake wall will end up in the wrong hands. The page at the above address, for example, looks like the login page for SL, but it isn't, so, if someone would try to log into the SL website this way, they might well find themselves unable to log into SL or the SL website again.
Now that you know what a fake wall is let me tell you about the one I found.
I could tell that it was a fake wall in a few ways.
I tried shortening the URL by snipping the page name off, but that just showed the same fake wall again. Then I tried leaving off the first word of the domain name leaving only altervista.org. Judging from the web page this took me to, that bit I just took off is like a username.
Removing the first part took me to a company's web page that was made in Italian. Nevertheless, I tried sending them an English language email about the fake wall. Apparently, they understood just fine, because the account was suspended only a moment later. This, by the way, explains why the unlinked URL is actually unlinked.
When people find a fake wall, the more (perhaps overly) cautious among us, strongly recommend not clicking on the link. Personally, I believe that the link is perfectly harmless. What you should not do is handle the page you'll find there as if it is a legitimate one.
This is true for any fake wall; not just the one this post is about.
As always, I hope you enjoyed reading this blog post. If you have any questions or comments, then please let me know in the form down below.
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